He was dressed Wichwezi fashion, with a little white goat-skin apron, adorned with numerous charms, and used a paddle for a mace or walking stick.

He was not an old man, though he affected to be so--walking very slowly and deliberately, coughing asthmatically, glimmering with his eyes, and mumbling like a witch.

With much affected difficulty he sat at the end of the hut beside the symbols alluded to, and continued his coughing full half an hour, when his wife came in in the same manner, without saying a word, and assumed the same affected style.

The king jokingly looked at me and laughed, and then at these strange creatures, by turn, as much as to say, What do you think of them?
but no voice was heard save that of the old wife, who croaked like a frog for water, and, when some was brought, croaked again because it was not the purest of the lake's produce--had the first cup changed, wetted her lips with the second, and hobbled away in the same manner as she came.
At this juncture the Mgussa's familiar motioned the Kamraviona and several officers to draw around him, when, in a very low tone, he gave them all the orders of the deep, and walked away.

His revelations seemed unpropitious, for we immediately repaired to our boats and returned to our quarters.